The cultivation and purification of viruses has become increasingly important for gene therapy and vaccine development. Huyghe et al. (Human Gene Therapy 6: 1403-1416 (1995)) disclosed a comparison of several methods for purification of recombinant adenoviruses, including anion-exchange chromatography, size exclusion chromatography, immobilized zinc affinity chromatography, ultracentrifugation, concluding that the preferred process for purification of a recombinant adenovirus is nuclease treatment of a cell lysate, followed by filtration through membrane filters, followed by DEAE chromatography, followed by zinc affinity chromatography.
In view of the ever-increasing need for purified viruses, for example for use as viral vectors for gene therapy, improved methods of purification would be highly desired.